ankylosed tooth vitality

ankylosed tooth vitality

chapter v the professor had turned into a street tothe left, and walked along, with his head carried rigidly erect, in acrowd whose every in... Januari 03, 2017

chapter v the professor had turned into a street tothe left, and walked along, with his head carried rigidly erect, in acrowd whose every individual almost overtopped his stunted stature. itwas vain to pretend to himself that he was not disappointed. but that wasmere feeling; the stoicism of his thought could not be disturbed by thisor any other failure. next time, or the time after next, a telling strokewould be delivered—something really startling—ablow fit to open the first crack in the imposing front of the great edificeof legal conceptions

sheltering the atrocious injustice of society.of humble origin, and with an appearance really so mean as to standin the way of his considerable natural abilities, his imaginationhad been fired early by the tales of men rising from the depths ofpoverty to positions of authority and affluence. the extreme, almostascetic purity of his thought, combined with an astounding ignoranceof worldly conditions, had set before him a goal of power and prestigeto be attained without the medium of arts, graces, tact, wealth—bysheer weight of merit alone. on that view he considered himself entitled toundisputed success. his

father, a delicate dark enthusiast with asloping forehead, had been an itinerant and rousing preacher of some obscurebut rigid christian sect—a man supremely confident in the privilegesof his righteousness. in the son, individualist by temperament, once thescience of colleges had replaced thoroughly the faith of conventicles,this moral attitude translated itself into a frenzied puritanismof ambition. he nursed it as something secularly holy. to see it thwartedopened his eyes to the true nature of the world, whose morality wasartificial, corrupt, and blasphemous. the way of even the most justifiablerevolutions is

prepared by personal impulses disguised intocreeds. the professor’s indignation found in itself a final causethat absolved him from the sin of turning to destruction as the agent ofhis ambition. to destroy public faith in legality was the imperfectformula of his pedantic fanaticism; but the subconscious convictionthat the framework of an established social order cannot be effectuallyshattered except by some form of collective or individual violencewas precise and correct. he was a moral agent—that was settled in hismind. by exercising his agency with ruthless defiance he procured for himselfthe appearances of power

and personal prestige. that was undeniableto his vengeful bitterness. it pacified its unrest; and in their own waythe most ardent of revolutionaries are perhaps doing no morebut seeking for peace in common with the rest of mankind—the peace of soothedvanity, of satisfied appetites, or perhaps of appeased conscience. lost in the crowd, miserable and undersized,he meditated confidently on his power, keeping his hand in the left pocketof his trousers, grasping lightly the india-rubber ball, the supremeguarantee of his sinister freedom; but after a while he became disagreeablyaffected by the sight

of the roadway thronged with vehicles andof the pavement crowded with men and women. he was in a long, straightstreet, peopled by a mere fraction of an immense multitude; but allround him, on and on, even to the limits of the horizon hidden by the enormouspiles of bricks, he felt the mass of mankind mighty in its numbers.they swarmed numerous like locusts, industrious like ants, thoughtlesslike a natural force, pushing on blind and orderly and absorbed, imperviousto sentiment, to logic, to terror too perhaps. that was the form of doubt he feared most.impervious to fear! often

while walking abroad, when he happened alsoto come out of himself, he had such moments of dreadful and sane mistrustof mankind. what if nothing could move them? such moments cometo all men whose ambition aims at a direct grasp upon humanity—toartists, politicians, thinkers, reformers, or saints. a despicable emotionalstate this, against which solitude fortifies a superior character; andwith severe exultation the professor thought of the refuge of his room,with its padlocked cupboard, lost in a wilderness of poor houses, the hermitageof the perfect anarchist. in order to reach sooner the pointwhere he could take his

omnibus, he turned brusquely out of the populousstreet into a narrow and dusky alley paved with flagstones. on oneside the low brick houses had in their dusty windows the sightless, moribundlook of incurable decay—empty shells awaiting demolition.from the other side life had not departed wholly as yet. facing the only gas-lampyawned the cavern of a second-hand furniture dealer, where, deepin the gloom of a sort of narrow avenue winding through a bizarre forestof wardrobes, with an undergrowth tangle of table legs, a tall pier-glassglimmered like a pool of water in a wood. an unhappy, homeless couch,accompanied by two

unrelated chairs, stood in the open. the onlyhuman being making use of the alley besides the professor, coming stalwartand erect from the opposite direction, checked his swinging pacesuddenly. “hallo!” he said, and stood a little onone side watchfully. the professor had already stopped, with aready half turn which brought his shoulders very near the other wall. hisright hand fell lightly on the back of the outcast couch, the left remainedpurposefully plunged deep in the trousers pocket, and the roundnessof the heavy rimmed spectacles imparted an owlish character tohis moody, unperturbed face.

it was like a meeting in a side corridor ofa mansion full of life. the stalwart man was buttoned up in a dark overcoat,and carried an umbrella. his hat, tilted back, uncovered a good dealof forehead, which appeared very white in the dusk. in the dark patchesof the orbits the eyeballs glimmered piercingly. long, drooping moustaches,the colour of ripe corn, framed with their points the squareblock of his shaved chin. “i am not looking for you,” he said curtly. the professor did not stir an inch. the blendednoises of the enormous town sank down to an inarticulate low murmur.chief inspector heat of

the special crimes department changed histone. “not in a hurry to get home?” he asked,with mocking simplicity. the unwholesome-looking little moral agentof destruction exulted silently in the possession of personal prestige,keeping in check this man armed with the defensive mandate of amenaced society. more fortunate than caligula, who wished that theroman senate had only one head for the better satisfaction of his cruellust, he beheld in that one man all the forces he had set at defiance:the force of law, property, oppression, and injustice. he beheld all hisenemies, and fearlessly

confronted them all in a supreme satisfactionof his vanity. they stood perplexed before him as if before a dreadfulportent. he gloated inwardly over the chance of this meeting affirminghis superiority over all the multitude of mankind. it was in reality a chance meeting. chiefinspector heat had had a disagreeably busy day since his departmentreceived the first telegram from greenwich a little before eleven in themorning. first of all, the fact of the outrage being attempted less thana week after he had assured a high official that no outbreak of anarchistactivity was to be

apprehended was sufficiently annoying. ifhe ever thought himself safe in making a statement, it was then. he hadmade that statement with infinite satisfaction to himself, becauseit was clear that the high official desired greatly to hear that verything. he had affirmed that nothing of the sort could even be thoughtof without the department being aware of it within twenty-four hours; andhe had spoken thus in his consciousness of being the great expert ofhis department. he had gone even so far as to utter words which true wisdomwould have kept back. but chief inspector heat was not very wise—atleast not truly so. true

wisdom, which is not certain of anything inthis world of contradictions, would have prevented him from attaining hispresent position. it would have alarmed his superiors, and done awaywith his chances of promotion. his promotion had been very rapid. “there isn’t one of them, sir, that wecouldn’t lay our hands on at any time of night and day. we know what each ofthem is doing hour by hour,” he had declared. and the high official haddeigned to smile. this was so obviously the right thing to say for anofficer of chief inspector heat’s reputation that it was perfectlydelightful. the high official

believed the declaration, which chimed inwith his idea of the fitness of things. his wisdom was of an official kind,or else he might have reflected upon a matter not of theory butof experience that in the close-woven stuff of relations between conspiratorand police there occur unexpected solutions of continuity, suddenholes in space and time. a given anarchist may be watched inch by inchand minute by minute, but a moment always comes when somehow all sightand touch of him are lost for a few hours, during which something (generallyan explosion) more or less deplorable does happen. but the high official,carried away by his sense

of the fitness of things, had smiled, andnow the recollection of that smile was very annoying to chief inspectorheat, principal expert in anarchist procedure. this was not the only circumstance whose recollectiondepressed the usual serenity of the eminent specialist. therewas another dating back only to that very morning. the thought that whencalled urgently to his assistant commissioner’s private room hehad been unable to conceal his astonishment was distinctly vexing. his instinctof a successful man had taught him long ago that, as a general rule,a reputation is built on

manner as much as on achievement. and he feltthat his manner when confronted with the telegram had not beenimpressive. he had opened his eyes widely, and had exclaimed “impossible!”exposing himself thereby to the unanswerable retort of a finger-tip laidforcibly on the telegram which the assistant commissioner, after readingit aloud, had flung on the desk. to be crushed, as it were, underthe tip of a forefinger was an unpleasant experience. very damaging, too!furthermore, chief inspector heat was conscious of not havingmended matters by allowing himself to express a conviction.

“one thing i can tell you at once: noneof our lot had anything to do with this.” he was strong in his integrity of a good detective,but he saw now that an impenetrably attentive reserve towardsthis incident would have served his reputation better. on the other hand,he admitted to himself that it was difficult to preserve one’s reputationif rank outsiders were going to take a hand in the business. outsidersare the bane of the police as of other professions. the tone of the assistantcommissioner’s remarks had been sour enough to set one’s teethon edge.

and since breakfast chief inspector heat hadnot managed to get anything to eat. starting immediately to begin his investigationon the spot, he had swallowed a good deal of raw, unwholesomefog in the park. then he had walked over to the hospital; and when theinvestigation in greenwich was concluded at last he had lost his inclinationfor food. not accustomed, as the doctors are, to examine closely themangled remains of human beings, he had been shocked by the sight disclosedto his view when a waterproof sheet had been lifted off a tablein a certain apartment of

the hospital. another waterproof sheet was spread over thattable in the manner of a table-cloth, with the corners turned up overa sort of mound—a heap of rags, scorched and bloodstained, half concealingwhat might have been an accumulation of raw material for a cannibalfeast. it required considerable firmness of mind not to recoilbefore that sight. chief inspector heat, an efficient officer of hisdepartment, stood his ground, but for a whole minute he did not advance.a local constable in uniform cast a sidelong glance, and said, with stolidsimplicity:

“he’s all there. every bit of him. itwas a job.” he had been the first man on the spot afterthe explosion. he mentioned the fact again. he had seen something likea heavy flash of lightning in the fog. at that time he was standing at thedoor of the king william street lodge talking to the keeper. the concussionmade him tingle all over. he ran between the trees towards theobservatory. “as fast as my legs would carry me,” he repeated twice. chief inspector heat, bending forward overthe table in a gingerly and horrified manner, let him run on. the hospitalporter and another man

turned down the corners of the cloth, andstepped aside. the chief inspector’s eyes searched the gruesome detailof that heap of mixed things, which seemed to have been collectedin shambles and rag shops. “you used a shovel,” he remarked, observinga sprinkling of small gravel, tiny brown bits of bark, and particles ofsplintered wood as fine as needles. “had to in one place,” said the stolidconstable. “i sent a keeper to fetch a spade. when he heard me scraping theground with it he leaned his forehead against a tree, and was as sickas a dog.”

the chief inspector, stooping guardedly overthe table, fought down the unpleasant sensation in his throat. the shatteringviolence of destruction which had made of that body aheap of nameless fragments affected his feelings with a sense of ruthlesscruelty, though his reason told him the effect must have been as swiftas a flash of lightning. the man, whoever he was, had died instantaneously;and yet it seemed impossible to believe that a human body couldhave reached that state of disintegration without passing through thepangs of inconceivable agony. no physiologist, and still less of a metaphysician,chief inspector heat

rose by the force of sympathy, which is aform of fear, above the vulgar conception of time. instantaneous! he rememberedall he had ever read in popular publications of long and terrifyingdreams dreamed in the instant of waking; of the whole past lifelived with frightful intensity by a drowning man as his doomed head bobsup, streaming, for the last time. the inexplicable mysteries of consciousexistence beset chief inspector heat till he evolved a horriblenotion that ages of atrocious pain and mental torture could be containedbetween two successive winks of an eye. and meantime the chief inspectorwent on, peering at the

table with a calm face and the slightly anxiousattention of an indigent customer bending over what may be called theby-products of a butcher’s shop with a view to an inexpensive sundaydinner. all the time his trained faculties of an excellent investigator,who scorns no chance of information, followed the self-satisfied,disjointed loquacity of the constable. “a fair-haired fellow,” the last observedin a placid tone, and paused. “the old woman who spoke to the sergeantnoticed a fair-haired fellow coming out of maze hill station.” he paused.“and he was a fair-haired

fellow. she noticed two men coming out ofthe station after the uptrain had gone on,” he continued slowly. “shecouldn’t tell if they were together. she took no particular notice ofthe big one, but the other was a fair, slight chap, carrying a tin varnishcan in one hand.” the constable ceased. “know the woman?” muttered the chief inspector,with his eyes fixed on the table, and a vague notion in his mindof an inquest to be held presently upon a person likely to remain forever unknown. “yes. she’s housekeeper to a retired publican,and attends the chapel in

park place sometimes,” the constable utteredweightily, and paused, with another oblique glance at the table. then suddenly: “well, here he is—all ofhim i could see. fair. slight—slight enough. look at that footthere. i picked up the legs first, one after another. he was that scatteredyou didn’t know where to begin.” the constable paused; the least flicker ofan innocent self-laudatory smile invested his round face with an infantileexpression. “stumbled,” he announced positively. “istumbled once myself, and

pitched on my head too, while running up.them roots do stick out all about the place. stumbled against the rootof a tree and fell, and that thing he was carrying must have gone off rightunder his chest, i expect.” the echo of the words “person unknown”repeating itself in his inner consciousness bothered the chief inspectorconsiderably. he would have liked to trace this affair back to its mysteriousorigin for his own information. he was professionally curious.before the public he would have liked to vindicate the efficiency ofhis department by establishing

the identity of that man. he was a loyal servant.that, however, appeared impossible. the first term of theproblem was unreadable—lacked all suggestion but that of atrocious cruelty. overcoming his physical repugnance, chiefinspector heat stretched out his hand without conviction for the salvingof his conscience, and took up the least soiled of the rags. it was anarrow strip of velvet with a larger triangular piece of dark blue clothhanging from it. he held it up to his eyes; and the police constable spoke. “velvet collar. funny the old woman shouldhave noticed the velvet

collar. dark blue overcoat with a velvet collar,she has told us. he was the chap she saw, and no mistake. andhere he is all complete, velvet collar and all. i don’t think i misseda single piece as big as a postage stamp.” at this point the trained faculties of thechief inspector ceased to hear the voice of the constable. he moved to oneof the windows for better light. his face, averted from the room, expresseda startled intense interest while he examined closely the triangularpiece of broad-cloth. by a sudden jerk he detached it, and onlyafter stuffing it into his

pocket turned round to the room, and flungthe velvet collar back on the table— “cover up,” he directed the attendantscurtly, without another look, and, saluted by the constable, carried off hisspoil hastily. a convenient train whirled him up to town,alone and pondering deeply, in a third-class compartment. that singed pieceof cloth was incredibly valuable, and he could not defend himselffrom astonishment at the casual manner it had come into his possession. itwas as if fate had thrust that clue into his hands. and after the mannerof the average man, whose

ambition is to command events, he began tomistrust such a gratuitous and accidental success—just because it seemedforced upon him. the practical value of success depends not a little on theway you look at it. but fate looks at nothing. it has no discretion.he no longer considered it eminently desirable all round to establishpublicly the identity of the man who had blown himself up that morningwith such horrible completeness. but he was not certain of theview his department would take. a department is to those it employsa complex personality with ideas and even fads of its own. it dependson the loyal devotion of its

servants, and the devoted loyalty of trustedservants is associated with a certain amount of affectionate contempt,which keeps it sweet, as it were. by a benevolent provision of natureno man is a hero to his valet, or else the heroes would have to brush theirown clothes. likewise no department appears perfectly wise to the intimacyof its workers. a department does not know so much as some ofits servants. being a dispassionate organism, it can never be perfectlyinformed. it would not be good for its efficiency to know too much.chief inspector heat got out of the train in a state of thoughtfulnessentirely untainted with

disloyalty, but not quite free of that jealousmistrust which so often springs on the ground of perfect devotion,whether to women or to institutions. it was in this mental disposition, physicallyvery empty, but still nauseated by what he had seen, that he hadcome upon the professor. under these conditions which make for irascibilityin a sound, normal man, this meeting was specially unwelcometo chief inspector heat. he had not been thinking of the professor; hehad not been thinking of any individual anarchist at all. the complexionof that case had somehow

forced upon him the general idea of the absurdityof things human, which in the abstract is sufficiently annoying toan unphilosophical temperament, and in concrete instances becomesexasperating beyond endurance. at the beginning of his careerchief inspector heat had been concerned with the more energetic forms ofthieving. he had gained his spurs in that sphere, and naturally enoughhad kept for it, after his promotion to another department, a feelingnot very far removed from affection. thieving was not a sheer absurdity.it was a form of human industry, perverse indeed, but still an industryexercised in an

industrious world; it was work undertakenfor the same reason as the work in potteries, in coal mines, in fields, intool-grinding shops. it was labour, whose practical difference from theother forms of labour consisted in the nature of its risk, whichdid not lie in ankylosis, or lead poisoning, or fire-damp, or gritty dust,but in what may be briefly defined in its own special phraseology as“seven years hard.” chief inspector heat was, of course, not insensibleto the gravity of moral differences. but neither were the thieveshe had been looking after. they submitted to the severe sanctions ofa morality familiar to chief

inspector heat with a certain resignation. they were his fellow-citizens gone wrong becauseof imperfect education, chief inspector heat believed; but allowingfor that difference, he could understand the mind of a burglar, because,as a matter of fact, the mind and the instincts of a burglar are of thesame kind as the mind and the instincts of a police officer. both recognisethe same conventions, and have a working knowledge of each other’smethods and of the routine of their respective trades. they understand eachother, which is advantageous to both, and establishes a sortof amenity in their

relations. products of the same machine, oneclassed as useful and the other as noxious, they take the machine forgranted in different ways, but with a seriousness essentially the same.the mind of chief inspector heat was inaccessible to ideas of revolt.but his thieves were not rebels. his bodily vigour, his cool inflexiblemanner, his courage and his fairness, had secured for him much respectand some adulation in the sphere of his early successes. he had felthimself revered and admired. and chief inspector heat, arrested withinsix paces of the anarchist nick-named the professor, gave a thought ofregret to the world of

thieves—sane, without morbid ideals, workingby routine, respectful of constituted authorities, free from all taintof hate and despair. after paying this tribute to what is normalin the constitution of society (for the idea of thieving appearedto his instinct as normal as the idea of property), chief inspector heatfelt very angry with himself for having stopped, for having spoken, forhaving taken that way at all on the ground of it being a short cut fromthe station to the headquarters. and he spoke again in his bigauthoritative voice, which, being moderated, had a threatening character.

“you are not wanted, i tell you,” he repeated. the anarchist did not stir. an inward laughof derision uncovered not only his teeth but his gums as well, shookhim all over, without the slightest sound. chief inspector heat wasled to add, against his better judgment: “not yet. when i want you i will know whereto find you.” those were perfectly proper words, withinthe tradition and suitable to his character of a police officer addressingone of his special flock. but the reception they got departed from traditionand propriety. it was

outrageous. the stunted, weakly figure beforehim spoke at last. “i’ve no doubt the papers would give youan obituary notice then. you know best what that would be worth to you.i should think you can imagine easily the sort of stuff that wouldbe printed. but you may be exposed to the unpleasantness of being buriedtogether with me, though i suppose your friends would make an effortto sort us out as much as possible.” with all his healthy contempt for the spiritdictating such speeches, the atrocious allusiveness of the words had itseffect on chief inspector

heat. he had too much insight, and too muchexact information as well, to dismiss them as rot. the dusk of this narrowlane took on a sinister tint from the dark, frail little figure, itsback to the wall, and speaking with a weak, self-confident voice.to the vigorous, tenacious vitality of the chief inspector, the physicalwretchedness of that being, so obviously not fit to live, was ominous;for it seemed to him that if he had the misfortune to be such a miserableobject he would not have cared how soon he died. life had such a stronghold upon him that a fresh wave of nausea broke out in slight perspirationupon his brow. the

murmur of town life, the subdued rumble ofwheels in the two invisible streets to the right and left, came throughthe curve of the sordid lane to his ears with a precious familiarity andan appealing sweetness. he was human. but chief inspector heat was alsoa man, and he could not let such words pass. “all this is good to frighten children with,”he said. “i’ll have you yet.” it was very well said, without scorn, withan almost austere quietness. “doubtless,” was the answer; “but there’sno time like the present,

believe me. for a man of real convictionsthis is a fine opportunity of self-sacrifice. you may not find another sofavourable, so humane. there isn’t even a cat near us, and thesecondemned old houses would make a good heap of bricks where you stand. you’llnever get me at so little cost to life and property, which you are paidto protect.” “you don’t know who you’re speakingto,” said chief inspector heat firmly. “if i were to lay my hands on younow i would be no better than yourself.” “ah! the game!’

“you may be sure our side will win in theend. it may yet be necessary to make people believe that some of you oughtto be shot at sight like mad dogs. then that will be the game. buti’ll be damned if i know what yours is. i don’t believe you know yourselves.you’ll never get anything by it.” “meantime it’s you who get something fromit—so far. and you get it easily, too. i won’t speak of your salary,but haven’t you made your name simply by not understanding what we areafter?” “what are you after, then?” asked chiefinspector heat, with scornful

haste, like a man in a hurry who perceiveshe is wasting his time. the perfect anarchist answered by a smilewhich did not part his thin colourless lips; and the celebrated chiefinspector felt a sense of superiority which induced him to raise a warningfinger. “give it up—whatever it is,” he saidin an admonishing tone, but not so kindly as if he were condescending to givegood advice to a cracksman of repute. “give it up. you’ll find we aretoo many for you.” the fixed smile on the professor’s lipswavered, as if the mocking spirit within had lost its assurance. chief inspectorheat went on:

“don’t you believe me eh? well, you’veonly got to look about you. we are. and anyway, you’re not doing it well.you’re always making a mess of it. why, if the thieves didn’t know theirwork better they would starve.” the hint of an invincible multitude behindthat man’s back roused a sombre indignation in the breast of the professor.he smiled no longer his enigmatic and mocking smile. the resistingpower of numbers, the unattackable stolidity of a great multitude,was the haunting fear of his sinister loneliness. his lips trembled forsome time before he managed

to say in a strangled voice: “i am doing my work better than you’redoing yours.” “that’ll do now,” interrupted chiefinspector heat hurriedly; and the professor laughed right out this time. whilestill laughing he moved on; but he did not laugh long. it was a sad-faced,miserable little man who emerged from the narrow passage into the bustleof the broad thoroughfare. he walked with the nervelessgait of a tramp going on, still going on, indifferent to rain or sunin a sinister detachment from the aspects of sky and earth. chief inspectorheat, on the other hand,

after watching him for a while, stepped outwith the purposeful briskness of a man disregarding indeed the inclemenciesof the weather, but conscious of having an authorised missionon this earth and the moral support of his kind. all the inhabitants ofthe immense town, the population of the whole country, and eventhe teeming millions struggling upon the planet, were with him—down to thevery thieves and mendicants. yes, the thieves themselves were sure to bewith him in his present work. the consciousness of universal support inhis general activity heartened him to grapple with the particular problem.

the problem immediately before the chief inspectorwas that of managing the assistant commissioner of his department,his immediate superior. this is the perennial problem of trusty andloyal servants; anarchism gave it its particular complexion, but nothingmore. truth to say, chief inspector heat thought but little of anarchism.he did not attach undue importance to it, and could never bring himselfto consider it seriously. it had more the character of disorderly conduct;disorderly without the human excuse of drunkenness, which at anyrate implies good feeling and an amiable leaning towards festivity. as criminals,anarchists were

distinctly no class—no class at all. andrecalling the professor, chief inspector heat, without checking his swingingpace, muttered through his teeth: “lunatic.” catching thieves was another matter altogether.it had that quality of seriousness belonging to every form of opensport where the best man wins under perfectly comprehensible rules. therewere no rules for dealing with anarchists. and that was distastefulto the chief inspector. it was all foolishness, but that foolishnessexcited the public mind,

affected persons in high places, and touchedupon international relations. a hard, merciless contempt settledrigidly on the chief inspector’s face as he walked on. his mindran over all the anarchists of his flock. not one of them had half thespunk of this or that burglar he had known. not half—not one-tenth. at headquarters the chief inspector was admittedat once to the assistant commissioner’s private room. he found him,pen in hand, bent over a great table bestrewn with papers, as if worshippingan enormous double inkstand of bronze and crystal. speaking tubesresembling snakes were

tied by the heads to the back of the assistantcommissioner’s wooden arm-chair, and their gaping mouths seemedready to bite his elbows. and in this attitude he raised only his eyes,whose lids were darker than his face and very much creased. the reports hadcome in: every anarchist had been exactly accounted for. after saying this he lowered his eyes, signedrapidly two single sheets of paper, and only then laid down his pen,and sat well back, directing an inquiring gaze at his renowned subordinate.the chief inspector stood it well, deferential but inscrutable.

“i daresay you were right,” said the assistantcommissioner, “in telling me at first that the london anarchists hadnothing to do with this. i quite appreciate the excellent watch kepton them by your men. on the other hand, this, for the public, does notamount to more than a confession of ignorance.” the assistant commissioner’s delivery wasleisurely, as it were cautious. his thought seemed to rest poised on a wordbefore passing to another, as though words had been the stepping-stonesfor his intellect picking its way across the waters of error. “unlessyou have brought something

useful from greenwich,” he added. the chief inspector began at once the accountof his investigation in a clear matter-of-fact manner. his superiorturning his chair a little, and crossing his thin legs, leaned sidewayson his elbow, with one hand shading his eyes. his listening attitude hada sort of angular and sorrowful grace. gleams as of highly burnishedsilver played on the sides of his ebony black head when he inclinedit slowly at the end. chief inspector heat waited with the appearanceof turning over in his mind all he had just said, but, as a matterof fact, considering the

advisability of saying something more. theassistant commissioner cut his hesitation short. “you believe there were two men?” he asked,without uncovering his eyes. the chief inspector thought it more than probable.in his opinion, the two men had parted from each other withina hundred yards from the observatory walls. he explained also how theother man could have got out of the park speedily without being observed.the fog, though not very dense, was in his favour. he seemed tohave escorted the other to the spot, and then to have left him thereto do the job single-handed.

taking the time those two were seen comingout of maze hill station by the old woman, and the time when the explosionwas heard, the chief inspector thought that the other man mighthave been actually at the greenwich park station, ready to catch thenext train up, at the moment his comrade was destroying himself so thoroughly. “very thoroughly—eh?” murmured the assistantcommissioner from under the shadow of his hand. the chief inspector in a few vigorous wordsdescribed the aspect of the remains. “the coroner’s jury will havea treat,” he added grimly.

the assistant commissioner uncovered his eyes. “we shall have nothing to tell them,”he remarked languidly. he looked up, and for a time watched the markedlynon-committal attitude of his chief inspector. his nature was onethat is not easily accessible to illusions. he knew that a department isat the mercy of its subordinate officers, who have their own conceptionsof loyalty. his career had begun in a tropical colony. hehad liked his work there. it was police work. he had been very successfulin tracking and breaking up certain nefarious secret societies amongstthe natives. then he took his

long leave, and got married rather impulsively.it was a good match from a worldly point of view, but his wife formedan unfavourable opinion of the colonial climate on hearsay evidence.on the other hand, she had influential connections. it was an excellentmatch. but he did not like the work he had to do now. he felt himselfdependent on too many subordinates and too many masters. the nearpresence of that strange emotional phenomenon called public opinionweighed upon his spirits, and alarmed him by its irrational nature. no doubtthat from ignorance he exaggerated to himself its power for goodand evil—especially for evil;

and the rough east winds of the english spring(which agreed with his wife) augmented his general mistrust of men’smotives and of the efficiency of their organisation. the futilityof office work especially appalled him on those days so trying to hissensitive liver. he got up, unfolding himself to his full height,and with a heaviness of step remarkable in so slender a man, movedacross the room to the window. the panes streamed with rain, and the shortstreet he looked down into lay wet and empty, as if swept clear suddenlyby a great flood. it was a very trying day, choked in raw fog to beginwith, and now drowned in cold

rain. the flickering, blurred flames of gas-lampsseemed to be dissolving in a watery atmosphere. and thelofty pretensions of a mankind oppressed by the miserable indignitiesof the weather appeared as a colossal and hopeless vanity deserving ofscorn, wonder, and compassion. “horrible, horrible!” thought the assistantcommissioner to himself, with his face near the window-pane. “we havebeen having this sort of thing now for ten days; no, a fortnight—a fortnight.”he ceased to think completely for a time. that utter stillnessof his brain lasted about

three seconds. then he said perfunctorily:“you have set inquiries on foot for tracing that other man up and downthe line?” he had no doubt that everything needful hadbeen done. chief inspector heat knew, of course, thoroughly the businessof man-hunting. and these were the routine steps, too, that would betaken as a matter of course by the merest beginner. a few inquiries amongstthe ticket collectors and the porters of the two small railway stationswould give additional details as to the appearance of the two men;the inspection of the collected tickets would show at once wherethey came from that morning.

it was elementary, and could not have beenneglected. accordingly the chief inspector answered that all this hadbeen done directly the old woman had come forward with her deposition.and he mentioned the name of a station. “that’s where they came from,sir,” he went on. “the porter who took the tickets at maze hill rememberstwo chaps answering to the description passing the barrier. they seemedto him two respectable working men of a superior sort—sign paintersor house decorators. the big man got out of a third-class compartmentbackward, with a bright tin can in his hand. on the platform he gave itto carry to the fair young

fellow who followed him. all this agrees exactlywith what the old woman told the police sergeant in greenwich.” the assistant commissioner, still with hisface turned to the window, expressed his doubt as to these two men havinghad anything to do with the outrage. all this theory rested upon theutterances of an old charwoman who had been nearly knocked downby a man in a hurry. not a very substantial authority indeed, unlesson the ground of sudden inspiration, which was hardly tenable. “frankly now, could she have been reallyinspired?” he queried, with

grave irony, keeping his back to the room,as if entranced by the contemplation of the town’s colossal formshalf lost in the night. he did not even look round when he heard themutter of the word “providential” from the principal subordinateof his department, whose name, printed sometimes in the papers, wasfamiliar to the great public as that of one of its zealous and hard-workingprotectors. chief inspector heat raised his voice a little. “strips and bits of bright tin were quitevisible to me,” he said. “that’s a pretty good corroboration.”

“and these men came from that little countrystation,” the assistant commissioner mused aloud, wondering. he wastold that such was the name on two tickets out of three given up out ofthat train at maze hill. the third person who got out was a hawker fromgravesend well known to the porters. the chief inspector imparted thatinformation in a tone of finality with some ill humour, as loyal servantswill do in the consciousness of their fidelity and with thesense of the value of their loyal exertions. and still the assistant commissionerdid not turn away from the darkness outside, as vast as a sea.

“two foreign anarchists coming from thatplace,” he said, apparently to the window-pane. “it’s rather unaccountable.”’ “yes, sir. but it would be still more unaccountableif that michaelis weren’t staying in a cottage in the neighbourhood.” at the sound of that name, falling unexpectedlyinto this annoying affair, the assistant commissioner dismissedbrusquely the vague remembrance of his daily whist party at hisclub. it was the most comforting habit of his life, in a mainlysuccessful display of his skill without the assistance of any subordinate.he entered his club to play

from five to seven, before going home to dinner,forgetting for those two hours whatever was distasteful in his life,as though the game were a beneficent drug for allaying the pangs ofmoral discontent. his partners were the gloomily humorous editor of a celebratedmagazine; a silent, elderly barrister with malicious little eyes;and a highly martial, simple-minded old colonel with nervous brownhands. they were his club acquaintances merely. he never met them elsewhereexcept at the card-table. but they all seemed to approachthe game in the spirit of co-sufferers, as if it were indeed a drugagainst the secret ills of

existence; and every day as the sun declinedover the countless roofs of the town, a mellow, pleasurable impatience,resembling the impulse of a sure and profound friendship, lightened hisprofessional labours. and now this pleasurable sensation went out ofhim with something resembling a physical shock, and was replaced by a specialkind of interest in his work of social protection—an improper sortof interest, which may be defined best as a sudden and alert mistrustof the weapon in his hand. end of chapter v�